Actors Want Their Salaries

Suffolk Movie Firm Pressured

SUFFOLK — The Screen Actors Guild has given Filmway Production Inc., a local company overseeing the making of the motion picture "Scared Silly," until Wednesday to pay what it owes the actors.

Filming of the movie at Atlantic Film Studios here was stopped Dec. 15, about a month after it started, when the production company ran out of money.

FOR THE RECORD - Published correction ran Wednesday, January 31, 1990. This article incorrectly reported the amount of money spent to date making the movie "Scared Silly." The correct figure is $2 million, not $2.5 million.

"The backing that everyone thought was there, was not," said Richard Marten, who along with his father, Albert Marten, runs Filmway Production Inc. The father and son are executive producers of "Scared Silly."

Atlantic Films Studios is the centerpiece of Hillpoint Farms, a 900-acre residential and commercial development north of downtown Suffolk being developed by the Martens. Filmway is the production arm of the studios.

Mark Locher, a spokesman for the Screen Actors Guild in Los Angeles, said that Filmway has until Wednesday to honor its contracts and pay the actors. If the actors are not paid by then, the union will have an arbitrator brought in to rule on the dispute.

Should the arbitrator agree that the actors are owed money, the union could take several steps. Locher said the most likely action would be to prohibit Screen Actors Guild members from working on films produced by Filmway or any pro duction company held by the Martens.

The guild is a national union that negotiates minimum wages and working conditions for professional performers in film, television and commercials. It has about 72,000 members.

A number of complaints against Filmway Production Inc. and Scared Silly Inc., the investment group also headed by the Martens to finance the movie, have been registered with the union and the state attorney general's office. John Purcell, an assistant attorney general, said the state plans to take no action at this time.

Many of those actors signed "pay or play" contracts, Locher said. Such contracts guarantee the actor is paid regardless of the state of production, he said.

Orbach's role never came up in the schedule of shooting completed, but he will get paid an undisclosed contractual amount, Locher said.

Filmway posted a security deposit totaling about half of what the actors were to be paid, said Locher. That bond is being divided between the 15 principal actors in the movie.

Ken Kaplan, an agent representing Orbach and Frances Fisher, who is also in the movie, said it is unlikely those actors will appear in the film at all. "At this point, I have not seen any indication that they intend to make good," Kaplan said.

About $2.5 million was spent on the movie before filming stopped, Richard Marten said. A number of vendors working with the production company have not been paid, though they have worked out payment schedules with Filmway.

Fred Black, owner of Affordable Tents, said he has agreed with Filmway for a two-week deferral of the amount the company owes him. Black would not say how much that amount is. "I hope to have them as clients again," he added.

Caterers and other support crews also have unmet bills from the company. Gordon Christie of Touch of Class Catering said he "had no problems we were unable to work out," and would not comment further.

Filmway is scheduled to start its second production, "Stray Kids," late this spring. However, Jane Mills, a spokeswoman for Filmway, acknowledged that the financial problems plaguing "Scared Silly" have forced back the schedule of filming for "Stray Kids."